* = saw live this year
Best Emo/Punk Album
Frank Turner – FTHC
Mom Jeans. – Sweet Tooth
Oso Oso – sore thumb*
Riverby – Absolution
The Wonder Years – The Hum Goes on Forever
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Honorable mentions: Coheed and Cambria – Vaxis – Act II: A Window of the Waking Mind, Hot Water Music – Feel the Void, Pinegrove – 11:11, Viagra Boys – Cave World
Of the four genre categories here, this one probably represents the smallest percentage of my music listening in 2022—at least as far as new releases go. I listened to a ton of New Found Glory, Jimmy Eat World, The Menzingers, and last year's #1, Sincere Engineer, in 2022, but gave comparably fewer spins to new emo/punk releases. I'm sure there's much more great stuff out there, but I don't think I'm as tapped in to this genre as I used to be for whatever reason. Perhaps I'll try to find more of an "in" in 2023.
In the meantime, this is still a pretty solid group of records. PA punk vets The Wonder Years have always been a "like not love" band for me. Their new one didn't change that—it largely failed to live up to the excellent "Wyatt's Song (Your Name)" single—but it did move the needle in the right direction. Mom Jeans. had been on the periphery of my genre knowledge, but this Jeff Rosenstock–influenced release—buoyant but only to hide the sadness—firmly grabbed my attention. The new Oso Oso didn't seem to live up to 2019's basking in the glow at first blush—the songwriting and album construction aren't quite as tight—but it's been growing on me. Seeing him play several of the songs live when they opened for The Menzingers helped. The relatively unknown Riverby—who play like a more emo-leaning Sincere Engineer but out of Philly instead of Chicago—were a great discovery courtesy of baseball writer Keith Law's newsletter/blog. It's a short but sweet collection of bangers and ballads both.
Best Pop Artist
Carly Rae Jepsen — The Loneliest Time
Let's Eat Grandma – Two Ribbons
The Regrettes – Further Joy
Sammy Rae & The Friends*
Taylor Swift – Midnights
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Honorable mentions: Hatchie – Giving the World Away, Maggie Rogers – Surrender, Mitski – Laurel Hell, Soccer Mommy – Sometimes, Forever
It was a tough choice for the fifth nominee in this field. The Chvrches-esque Hatchie was a good discovery this year, and this was the first Mitski album I've been able to get into. (There's just been something missing for me in her previous releases.) Surrender was a solid sophomore record for Rogers, but I need to spend more time with it. I like both of the last two Soccer Mommy albums, but we're seeing mild diminishing returns from Sophia Allison now with three albums in four years. So I went with the cheekily named Let's Eat Grandma for the fifth slot. I haven't listened to the album as a whole a ton, but "Happy New Year" and the title track are both among my most-listened of the year—pristine, mineralized synth-pop gems.
You can quibble about The Regrettes' placement here—they started as a pop-punk band but Further Joy pretty much takes the "-punk" out of the equation, and they pull off the shift to pop with aplomb. They were an easy fourth inclusion here. So were, obviously, Swift and Jepsen. But what might surprise some is that I rank the latter ahead of the former here. Midnights feels like a step backward to Swift's Reputation era for me. That's easily my least favorite mature Swift album—it's full of tryhard bad girl pretensions that I just don't buy. There are some bops here to be sure, like "Karma," but stinkers like "Vigilante Shit" just have me rolling my eyes. But Loneliest is all bangers all the time—"Surrender My Heart" is one of the best singles of the year, and on "Beach House," Jepsen delivers lines like "I got a beach house in Malibu and I'm probably gonna hurt your feelings" with a wink Swift could never hope to pull off.
Best Indie Rock Album
beabadoobee – Beatopia
Beach Bunny – Emotional Creature
The Beths – Expert in a Dying Field
Metric – Formentera*
Wet Leg – Wet Leg
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Honorable mentions: Death Cab for Cutie – Asphalt Meadows, Eve 6 – hyper relevisation, Spoon – Lucifer on the Sofa, Stars – From Capelton Hill
No offense to veterans like Death Cab, Spoon, and, especially, Eve 6 (one of the best Twitter follows of the year as well), but the ladies owned indie rock in 2022. (Shoutout to Amy Millan of the always-fun Stars.) I thought about slotting beabadoobee in the category above, but unlike most of the women there, she actually plays (the hell out of) guitar, and Beatopia is a dreamy, dramatic, sometimes dingy trek through your early 20s, of a piece with Soccer Mommy (exploring similar thematic terrain with a bit different sonic sensibility). Wet Leg was a late-year discovery for me—they kept appearing in all those "Best of 2022" lists for a reason, as I discovered. The term "earworm" is perhaps overused, but it applies to these two Wight chicks (excuse the pun) and their album full of wry rompers like the inescapable "Chaise Longue." Beach Bunny wasn't a new discovery for me—I quite liked the 2020 non-album single "Good Girls (Don't Get Used)"—but their new album would have made my top-10 list had I made one. Emotional Creature is a fantastic sophomore album—"Somebody's gonna figure me out" Lili Trifilio laments on opener "Entropy," but it sounds like she's already figured her band's sound out: sprightly riffs, winsome melodies, catchy af choruses. Keep it coming, please!
Let me stop here to address the elephant in the room (blog post): a Metric album not winning in this category. On of my all-time favorite bands, they have three albums that are my #1 of the year they came out—2009's Fantasies, 2012's Synthetica, and 2018's Art of Doubt (ignore the low placing of Fantasies in the link at the beginning; I'd just discovered the band then). There's only one Metric album since 2009 that wasn't my favorite of the year it was released—2015's Pagans in Vegas, an album that Formentera very much feels like a companion piece to. Like Pagans, Formentera is a bit underwritten and overcooked at the same time, full of roughly hewn, chunky midtempo numbers. It's kicked off by the meandering, sometimes gorgeous "Doomscroller," which is followed by two solid singles that actually feel more like Synthetica sequels ("All Comes Crashing" and "What Feels Like Eternity"). The middle of the album sags a bit before the lovely closer "Paths in the Sky," but the album as a whole has yet to really grab me. Pagans eventually grew on me a bit, but I still don't know if I'd put it much higher than #9 of 2015. Formentera already seems resigned to a similar "good, not great" fate. Hey, they can't all be winners, kid.
Best (Rootsy/Americana/Alternative?) Rock Album
The Afghan Whigs – How Do You Burn?
Cory Branan – When I Go I Ghost
Eddie Vedder – Earthling
Gregor Barnett – Don't Go Throwing Roses in My Grave*
Zach Bryan – American Heartbreak
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Honorable mentions: Carson McHone – Still Life, Delta Spirit – One Is One, The Drive-By Truckers – Welcome 2 Club XIII, The Mountain Goats – Bleed Out
Forgive the clumsy category title—these artists mostly fit under the same umbrella and "indie rock" was taken. There's a southern/country flair to most of these acts that clearly distinguishes them from the ones in the category above. Interesting how terms like "alternative" and "indie" don't really mean anything anymore since mainstream rock isn't really a thing anymore. But as you can see here and above, there's still lots of great rock music being made.
So much so that I had a hard time narrowing this to five nominees—this category probably made up the biggest slice of my listening pie this year. I spent a long time debating between DBTs (another solid release) and Delta Saint (Matthew Logan Vasquez's band) as the final inclusion until I heard Zach Bryan (another late-year "Best of" list find) only a week or two ago. The quality of his songwriting was immediately apparent, to say nothing of the sheer quantity (34 tracks!). This is back porch/backroads music of the highest caliber—plainspoken and sometimes plaintive, reminiscent of early Lucero, Dustin Kensrue's solo stuff, kin to Chris Stapelton and Sturgill Simpson (albeit not nearly as bombastic guitar-wise). I look forward to delving further into these tracks in 2023.
Next up is a band I'd long heard of but never really heard: The Afghan Whigs. I knew they were grunge or grunge-adjacent in the '90s, but grunge was never really my scene. They wouldn't normally be on my radar, but Spotify evidently thought otherwise, and I was immediately intrigued by "I'll Make You See God" when the algorithm put it in front of me. It's got a driving, QOTSA-esque riff, ferocious rhythm section, and fiery guitar solo, all overlaid with Greg Dulli's weathered, haunting vocals. The rest of the album is similar, but with plenty of moments of quiet beauty as well. It doesn't exactly fit with the rest of the nominees, but placing it here made the most sense.
We also have another '90s alternative frontman solo release here, with Eddie Vedder's impeccably crafted Earthling. Pearl Jam is probably my "favorite" of the big grunge bands, but I more respect them than actively listen to them. But I've always liked Vedder's solo stuff (especially his music for films like Into the Wild), and he enlisted an all-star supporting cast for this one (Chad Smith, Josh Klinghoffer, Benmont mother fucking Tench, even Stevie Wonder, Ringo Starr, and Elton John). My favorite is the Tom Petty homage "Long Way." Slightly less accomplished than Vedder is Gregor Barnett of The Menzingers fame, and his solo debut is an assured amalgamation of his Rust Belt punk sensibilities and a Southern Gothic sound. Some of the songs are a bit same-y, but I'd absolutely take another album of this.
Like I said above, this is the "genre" I listened to the most in 2022, and the artist I listened to the most was the easy winner here: Cory Branan. In fact, if you look at my Last.fm (yep, I still keep up with mine almost 20 years on) you'll see that I listened to Branan almost twice as much this year as the artist that came in second (The Beths, obviously). When I Go I Ghost is that damn good—it's this year's pantheon album, an all-timer you know you'll still be listening to two, three, five, ten years down the line. Not every year has one—I don't think last year did, and neither did 2016 or 2019—but I knew this year would almost as soon as I heard "When In Rome, When In Memphis," one of the best singles I've heard in a long, long time. It was so good I was almost afraid the rest of the album wouldn't live up to it. But it more than did with sensational tracks like the soul-influened "That Look I Lost," backalley stomper "When I Leave Here," wistful shredder "Room 101," and the gorgeous duet with Garrison Starr "On the Waterfront." There's not a weak track on the album—and believe me, I'd know with how much I've listened to it. I can't wait to keep doing so in the years to come—and to see him perform some of the songs live in March.
Song of the Year
Carly Rae Jepsen – "Surrender My Heart"
Cory Branan – "When In Rome, When In Memphis"
Frank Turner – "A Wave Across a Bay"
Jimmy Eat World – "Something Loud"*
Sammy Rae & The Friends – "For the Time Being"*
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Honorable mentions: The Beths – "A Real Thing", Eddie Vedder – "Long Way", Metric – "All Comes Crashing"*, Sincere Engineer – "Bottle Lightning Twice"*, The Wonder Years – "Wyatt's Song (Your Name)"
I had an easy enough time with the top four here, but the fifth spot gave me a bit of trouble. For most of the year, I had The Beths' powerpop masterpiece "A Real Thing" in my top 5. It's a summery toetapper with an insistent riff, incredible bridge, and a short-but-scintillating guitar solo. But just like it didn't wind up making The Beths' album, it just missed out here, overtaken late in the year by the pop confection perfection of "Surrender My Heart," Carly Rae's best song since the inimitable "Call Me Maybe." Her vocals are absolutely flawless, as is the production, and the chorus is an absolute MONSTER. It's quite simply addicting, so it gets the nod over the plucky Beths track.
Speaking of incredible vocals, we have Sammy Rae, who can flat-out fucking SING. She's got a shy sweetness like Carly Rae, but also a powerful set of pipes with plenty of range. Her talents are on full display on "Time," which has a beautiful, slow build that crescendos to a stunning finale. It's not a dissimilar structure to Turner's "Wave," perhaps the most heartrending song of the year, as mentioned above. It starts off almost conversational, with Turner plainly addressing the suicide of his friend, eventually addressing him directly—"God damn, I miss you, man." But when the chorus hits, he gets more metaphorical, and the emotion swells in his voice—"You were a wave across the bay never breaking." Powerful stuff, just like Jimmy Eat World's non-album single "Something Loud"—albeit in a more universal, less personal way. Jim Adkins and Co. manage to perfectly capture that feeling you had in your teens or 20s that a song could change your life—and they manage to prove that maybe it still could. It's vintage stuff from another of my all-time favorite bands. Here's hoping their next album taps into this same vein.
Artist of the Year
The Beths
Cory Branan
Kendrick Lamar
James McMurtry
Sammy Rae & The Friends*
I didn't have a Best Rap category this year because I didn't listen to much rap. I gave cursory listens to releases by Vince Staples, Kevin Gates, Logic, and Kid Cudi, but that's about it—other than Kendrick. But I didn't actually listen to Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers a ton. Don't get me wrong—I've listened to it several times through and really dig it. But there's a LOT of material here—duh, it's a double album—and some of it is quite heavy, like "We Cry Together," which is basically a domestic dispute in song form. It's intense. So I can't really say I listened to it enough to make any kind of declaration about it. (I don't think it's as good as Good Kid or Pimp, though.) But I did want to acknowledge it—mostly as a reminder to explore it in more detail in 2023. (And more rap in general.)
Finally, I wanted to give a shoutout to James McMurtry, the singer-songwriter son of novelist Larry McMurtry. He released an excellent album last year called The Horses and the Hounds that might very well have been my #1 album of 2022... if I had discovered it in time. I had heard and enjoyed a song or two courtesy of Spotify's algorithm, but it wasn't until sometime in March that I gave the album a whirl. I was hooked by his unadorned vocals, country fair band sound, and, most of all, his story-song stylings. The best example is the first song of his I heard, "Canola Fields," a wistful acoustic number with knockout lines like this: "In a way-back corner of a cross-town bus / We were hiding out under my hat / Cashin' in on a thirty-year crush /You can't be young and do that." The whole album is full of everyday poetry like that—not to mention consummate musicianship. I just wish I'd discovered it earlier.
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And that's a wrap on my annual music writeup. Nearly 4,000 words in about 3 days... not too shabby. I look forward to seeing what 2023 brings—and there will almost certainly be a 2022 album, like James McMurtry, that I missed. I'm sure I'll look back on this blog post (and I always do) in a year or two or more and chuckle at what I'd missed or over/underrated. That's really why I write these: for myself. But, if you're someone who's not me and is reading this, I give you my thanks. And a Happy New Year!
